Run Your Home Like A Business: No Means NO
A lot of parents fall into the mistake of over-explaining things thoroughly to their kids for them to understand the rules fully. Doing this might be good at some point, but explaining the rules more than once to your child as well as every decision that you make could lead to serious problems. If you let your child understand every reason and every little decision that you make, you might turn everything upside down – you become the one asking for their approval.
This is not the situation that you would want to have because when this happens, you as a parent can get stuck in a rut where you over-explain things to your children. At work, do you find your boss explaining to you why you should come to work on time? Have you heard of a manager sit beside an employee and explain to him in detail the dos and don’ts of the company? Experts believe that as long as you have already given your child a reasonable amount of input, any further explanation defeats the purpose.
Think about your relationship with your kid, have you been frequently explaining your rules and your reasons every time you get into an argument? If you have, then most likely you are frequently talking to your child as well every time he challenges your authority. In the process, you become the one defending your rules, in your own home.
If unnoticed, this habit usually grows with the child. You will soon find yourself compromising some more to your kid, and even changing the rules in favor of your kid every time he disagrees. Be reminded that when you over-elaborate your decisions to your child, you are training him NOT to follow your rules.
Keep in mind that when you tell your child “No, not right now”, and he keeps insisting that he should, then you end up giving in and letting him do it anyway, you just trained your child not to listen to you.
Remember that when you give in to your child’s whim even when already said no earlier, you are grooming him to break the rules, your rules. Of course, that is not what you want.
When you do not stand by your “no”, this is what happens – when you say “no” to your kids, they will think that you are just letting them challenge your authority, the punishment that you set, or the responsibilities that they have. When you explain yourself to your child over and over and end up doing what he wants, you are trying to be successful at allowing your child to overpower you without even knowing.
In order to avoid that, it is then necessary that you show your child certain limits that he is not to violate. These limits could be as minor as setting a curfew to saying, “No cartoons before homework”. Setting these rules sans the over-explaining habit lets your child realize the value of being told “no”.
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